Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Pupils experienced the darkening of the sun

I can still remember how i and my classmates banged the tin drums to make noise as we watch the darkening of the sun. Our folks told us the noise was necessary to drive away the dragon that ate the sun. I was grade one then. Aside from making noises, we also watched through a pale of calm water how ths sun grew darker and darker untill it was covered by the moon.

I can't remember the year, but the excitement lingers, the same excitement that i saw among the pupils of Bansalan Central Elementatary School this morning. About 10:30 in the morning, teachers decided to allow their pupils to watch how solar eclipse work. Using a plastic film from car tint, children looked through it to see the sun clearly as a portion of the covers it. In countries like China, it was a total eclipse, but here, Filipinos enjoyed a partial eclipse.

"On Wednesday, 2009 July 22, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half of Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in India and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 min 39 s. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean."

After "sun watching," pupils went back to their classroom to discuss the natural phenomenon. I had a chance to sat during their class and it was fun to watch the children discuss what they saw over that plastic film.For teachers, it was a rare opportunity for pupils to see this phenomenon. They were a bit luckier than other areas in Davao region because of fair weather. In some areas, students were not able to see the eclipse due to scattered clouds. According to NASA, the next solar eclipse will happen on July 11, 2010 which will be visible in Argentina.===end===